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Newsmax Promotes Newt Gingrich

Our goal for this Web site is to focus on Mitt’s qualities as a person, husband, father, and friend. From time to time, however, topics arise on which I cannot resist commenting. For example, I wrote recently how Jack Welch had said that Mitt is “The most qualified leader to run for president” in his lifetime. While that post fits our profile, another does not, asking whether Fox News is “In the Tank for Newt Gingrich?”
Today I cannot resist writing about another situation in the same vein. My wife and I have been noticing for a while now that Newsmax has been promoting Newt Gingrich, causing frustration to the point that she unsubscribed from their mailing list. Because I have over the past few years liked their perspective on the news, I have still been hanging on. Now I am glad that I did, because it provided the opportunity to show just how things are going there.

After thinking about the best way to illustrate what they have been up to, I decided I would put up an explanatory graphic with a short post to summarize messages from Newsmax that I had deleted from my E-mail inbox:

Newsmax Supports Newt Gingrich

The sheer volume of message traffic over a two-week period speaks for itself, which could yield a great deal of analysis regarding the details of the obvious bias. Limited time requires that I go only for the very low hanging fruit by pointing out a couple of the more blatant examples.

The reader should first know that I deleted very few other messages, which included paid ads for this and that. Also, I deleted a small number of other messages that came in between the blasts for Gingrich.

The whole episode began after Mitt had seemingly won Iowa, with Newsmax sending the first message on 6 January with the heading “Exclusive: Herman Cain Praises Gingrich for ‘Ideas, Solutions.'” That line in the message linked to the article, “Herman Cain Heaps Praise on Gingrich.”

As is shown in the graphic above, the flood of messages began on 12 January, two days after Mitt had won New Hampshire by a wide margin and Newt had come in fifth. At that point it seems that the alarm was sounded big time, and Newsmax subscribers were treated to a host of Newt-oriented messages. These contained quotes from Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Wildmon, and Mark Levin, all either supporting Newt or opposing Mitt. Even George Soros, the Right’s great nemesis and Obama supporter, made the list with a comment that is especially amusing and insightful, if not in the way that Soros had intended. His goal, highlighted by Newsmax in their piece, Soros: Obama, Romney ‘Not Much Difference’, is clearly to set up an equivalency in the mind of conservatives between Mitt and President Obama:

Billionaire financier George Soros thinks that, if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, there will be “little difference” between him and Barack Obama in the White House.

Soros offered the reassuring news to liberals across Europe during an interview this week in Davos, Switzerland.

As policymakers from Hong Kong to Canada pressed Greece and its creditors to strike a deal to cut the nation’s debt, Soros pressed in on GOP presidential candidate Romney:

“Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in,” Soros told Reuters in a videotaped interview.

“If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them.”

It should be clear that Soros was setting Mitt up for criticism from fellow conservatives, and Newsmax dutifully obliged. Adding icing to their Gingrich-flavored cake, the Newsmax writer cites Rush Limbaugh, who told his audience that Soros is “endorsing Romney. ‘Romney, that’s cool, no difference, I could go either way that way [sic].'”

The irony here, once again, is that Newsmax and others are doing exactly what the mainstream media did during the last election cycle: Promoting and failing to properly vet their favorite candidate in the race!

About Mike

Michael Bush first met Mitt in 1966 when they reported for a one-week training session in Salt Lake City before heading to France on the 4th of July to serve as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 2 1/2 years. They also served at the same time in Bordeaux for several months in 1968, where they worked together quite often. Mike is on the faculty of Brigham Young University and grew up in Alabama. He graduated from Brigham Young University in Political Science. He also has an MBA from the University of Missouri and a PhD from The Ohio State University in Foreign Language Education with an emphasis in Computer Science. He is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who spent most of his career at the US Air Force Academy teaching French and doing research in the area of computer-assisted language learning. He and his wife Annie have four children and 18 grandchildren. It goes without saying that the things written on this site reflect his views and opinions and are in no way intended to reflect those of Brigham Young University or its sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

8 thoughts on “Newsmax Promotes Newt Gingrich”

I don’t think anyone is “in the tank” for Newt. All these people are in the business of making money. Would Fox have higher ratings with or without a long primary? Would Newsweek get more or less hits with Newt holding on longer? Does Rush have more or less listeners with a drawn out Republican primary? It’s an obvious money-grab and it’s downright shameful. Conservative-leaning media types always bemoan the left-leaning media and say they are fair and balanced. Nope – they could care less about fair and balanced.

I, likewise, have observed this blatant pandering by Newsmax over the past many weeks in their adulation of Newt Gingrich. It has gotten to the point where I automatically delete their e-mail without opening. If I want pro-Gingrich propaganda, I can go to a Gingrich web-site.

I was just thinking of writing a very similar article… I have responded to Newsmax many times and told them how sick I am of getting their junk mail. I even got a response once from a Newt staffer and we had a back and forth for a while. It was complete LUNacy…Lunar .. MOON type verbal assault.!! Can’t believe these tools. I, like you and your wife used to look forward to their emails. Not anymore!

I’m glad to see that I am not the only one that had notice the Newsmax bias lately. I use to enjoy reading the articles on their site, but lately it has become obvious that they have a dog in this hunt. That is who they are promoting and trying to pass it off as news.

I too agree about Newsmax it the Gingrich Camp. It is in the wording and slant of EVERY article. I’ve considered stopping getting their emails, but it is good to be armed with what the opposition is saying. Is there ANYTHING that is PRO Romney? They keep commenting that he can’t get above 39% in the polls…. is it any wonder when even FOX NEWS reports are 74% against Romney and they are constantly talking about the ANTI-Romney vote. I am so sick of the bias but don’t know what to do about it. I live in Utah, which will no doubt go for Romney in the Primary, so all I can do is PRAY!